Previews

The Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II LD lens and the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM Lens came in a few days ago and I just photographed them yesterday morning. I unfortunately didn’t have the time to use the “lab” for these shots, but I decided to go the artistic route instead. For these photos I used the very poor available light, 5D Mark II, and the 135mm f/2 L lens which is great for low light work and I just love using it. It’s really hard to hand hold at low shutter speeds though as it has no image stabilization, but I still managed to get some decent shots why Michele and Layla were still asleep by simply jacking up the ISO and shooting wide open 😉

I hope you like these photos as, they are far from the normal “product” photography I do and more like art. I really like the old school look myself though, and I figure the standard shots of these lenses are all over the web anyway so why not have a little fun and change it up??

Sony A57 Full Specs and Features

Key Features

From corner to corner, every detail of your scene is beautifully captured by Sony’s proprietary Exmor APS HD CMOS sensor

Create movies of amazing clarity that play extra smoothly by recording them at Full HD resolution (1920 x 1080 pixels) in the AVCHD Ver. 2.0 (Progressive) format – at the extremely high frame rate of 60 -NTSC (50 PAL) fps

P/A/S/M modes (Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual) let you flexibly adjust aperture and shutter speed to modify the depth of field and achieve effects like defocused backgrounds when shooting movies in the manual focusing mode

With one press of the Movie button, the alpha 57 is ready to roll. The camera immediately enters movie recording mode even if you were shooting photographs continuously or in single-frame mode. It’s the quick and easy way to capture every moviemaking opportunity

Face Detection technology ensures that facial features are clearly focused and skin tones are accurately reproduced by fine-tuning parameters such as exposure, white balance, flash and D-Range Optimizer

Smile Shutter captures smiles at just the right moment by automatically releasing the shutter when smiles reach the desired level. And Face Registration lets you register up to eight people for the camera to prioritize when detecting faces in groups

The brightness and clarity of Sony’s big Xtra Fine LCD monitor brings out every detail of your scene, setting you free to clearly shoot in challenging shooting environments

You can preview the depth of field, motion blur and other effects of your camera settings by pressing the Preview button. The Tru-Finder and monitor display the scene almost exactly how it will appear in your photos and movies

Two buttons can be customized to enhance shooting convenience. You can reassign the AEL or ISO button to activate any of 24 assignable functions, including Drive Mode and Flash Mode

Two finder magnification ratios are selectable, allowing you to switch from the default (max.) mode to the standard (lower ratio) mode to support an extended eye-point. At the maximum 23.1mm eye-point, the entire frame is easy to see even when wearing glasses

Essential shooting information can be displayed in the viewfinder and monitor at high SVGA resolution for confirmation at a glance. Simply press the DISP button to display the information you desire

Simply sweep the camera to capture breathtaking vistas. The alpha 57 automatically records and seamlessly stitches a sequence of photos to create a spectacular image. 3D Sweep Panorama records separate right- and left-eye images to bring scenes alive when viewed on an HDMI-compliant 3D television

With one press, the instant High Dynamic Range mode takes three exposures at different settings and composites the best details from each – in the highlights, mid-tones and shadows – to create a single image with wider dynamic range than any single exposure could possibly capture

By suppressing noise, the Multi Frame NR mode lets you clearly capture scenes that would normally be challenging even for seasoned professionals

DRO uses proprietary Sony technology to bring out details in the highlights and shadows and deliver naturally bright images. It can be used during continuous shooting and provides five user selectable levels of compensation

Photos can be taken in your choice of four drive modes (single-shot, continuous, bracketed or self-timer shooting), which are selectable via user-friendly icons. You can shoot continuously at 8 or 3 fps, shoot with a 2 or 10-second delay, or bracket your choice of exposure, white balance or DRO

The alpha 57 compensates for the shading and aberration characteristics of the lens you mount. This includes vignetting, lateral chromatic aberration and optical distortion, which can each be activated or deactivated through the MENU as desired

The powerful built-in flash unit automatically pops up to illuminate dark scenes. It offers various modes, a guide number of 10 (ISO100 m), an irradiation angle that covers the angle of view of a wide 18mm lens and a maximum sync speed of 1/160 sec

This lens offers an f/2.8 maximum aperture throughout the entire zoom range, to ensure stress-free photographic shots at all focal lengths and distances. Additionally, a broader photographic expression through the use of faster shutter speeds as a result of the maximum aperture offers enhanced photographic pleasure.

Note! Di-II lenses cannot be used with digital SLR cameras using image sensors that are larger than that of an APS-C size imager, or with 35mm film SLR cameras.

Optimized for Digital SLR

The use of XR (Extra Refractive Index) glass optimizes the overall distribution of optical power, and also reduces various aberrations to the absolute minimum while achieving remarkable compactness. In addition, suitable positioning of two hybrid aspherical elements serves to maintain imaging performance and to shorten and compress the entire optical system.

LD Glass

An LD (Low Dispersion) glass element is used to accomplish effective compensation of on-axis and lateral chromatic aberrations, a critical factor for enhancing optical quality in digital photography, in order to achieve outstanding optical performance over the entire zoom range.

Enhanced Peripheral Illumination

Peripheral light fall-off is minimized when compared with that of conventional lenses for film cameras, so images are uniformly bright from the center to the periphery.

Internal Surface Coating to Reduce Ghosting and Flare

By employing “Internal Surface Coatings” (i.e., multiple-layer coatings on cemented surfaces of plural elements) and multiple-layer coating technology on ordinary elements, ghosting and flare due to the reflections that occur when light enters through the front element and reflections caused by the imagers themselves are reduced to the absolute minimum.

Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM Autofocus Lens

Full Feature Set and Overview

The Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM Autofocus Lens is a standard lens that provides a large maximum aperture of f/1.4. It is the ideal prime lens for use with all Sony or Minolta Maxxum digital or film SLR cameras. When used on Sony digital SLR cameras with the smaller APS-C size sensor, the equivalent focal length of this lens will be 75mm, which makes it an excellent choice as a bright medium telephoto lens. Its large f/1.4 aperture allows for sharply defined contrasty images against a nicely blurred background. The lens offers superior peripheral brightness even at the maximum aperture, and corrects for possible flare.

The improved DG lens design corrects for various aberrations. This lens is specially coated to get the best color balance, while cutting down on ghosting caused by reflections from the digital image sensor. The lens provides the utmost correction against lateral chromatic aberration, which is a serious problem for digital SLR cameras.

This lens also incorporates HSM (Hyper Sonic Motor), which ensures a quiet and high-speed AF as well as full-time manual focus override.

Closing Remarks and Teaser Pic

Both these lenses are pretty well made considering the price tags. The Sigma is actually lighter than I expected it to be even though the glass elements are huge to allow for the f/1.4 aperture. I managed to take a few pics so far with the Sigma 50mm and the corners are not great, but the center is excellent at f/1.4, and the bokeh is incredible 🙂 Check out this teaser shot below and stay tuned for tons of sample pics!!

Your support is greatly appreciated as we run this site in our spare time and are not paid. We can however, make a small commission if you click a product link that your interested in. That click will then give us credit if you choose to purchase any given item. This has no effect on the cost of the product, and is a simple way to give back to SonyAlphaLab.com for the effort and info we provide.